near-Earth object: estimated average times between impacts on Earth for near-Earth objects

Estimated average times between impacts on Earth for near-Earth objects (NEOs) over a range of sizes and equivalent amounts of released kinetic energy. Because there are far fewer large NEOs than smaller ones, the chance of an impact drops off rapidly with increasing size. Objects of the size thought to have resulted in the explosion over the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908 and in the Chicxulub crater off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula 65 million years ago are located on the curve for reference.